User:LKLAINBERG/sandbox

Lesli Klainberg
LESLI KLAINBERG is the Executive Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, one of the leading nonprofit film organizations in the United States, and an award-winning producer and director of documentaries.

The Film Society, a 50-year-old organization dedicated to supporting the art and craft of cinema and enriching film culture, operates the Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, which screens films 365 days a year and produces the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, as well many other series and retrospectives.

Prior to her current role as Executive Director, Lesli was FSLC’s Managing Director and the Producer of the New York Film Festival. From 2008 through 2011, she served as Executive Director of NewFest, NYC’s LGBT Film Festival.

Starting with her first job at WNET in NYC, Lesli has been a part of the nonfiction community for over thirty years. She has produced and directed documentaries that have both screened at leading film festivals and had wide distribution via broadcast and theatrical release.

Earlier in her career, Lesli produced the acclaimed independent film PAUL MONETTE: THE BRINK OF SUMMER'S END, which won the Audience Award for documentary at Sundance, Frameline, and Outfest, and was released theatrically by First Run Features and broadcast on HBO/Cinemax Reel Life. MONETTE was also on the “short list” for the Academy Award in 1997 and was nominated for the IDA Award for Best Documentary.

In 1999, she was the series producer of the Twentieth Century Project for Disney TV and Showtime, which featured six documentaries from such directors as Barry Levinson, Robert Zemeckis, Gregory Nava, and Robert Townsend.

Through her company, Orchard Films, she produced the American Experience documentary MISS AMERICA with Lisa Ades, which premiered at Sundance in 2001. She directed and co-produced with Ades FABULOUS! THE STORY OF QUEER CINEMA, which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival and was broadcast on IFC, and IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Other Orchard Films productions include WHO IS ALAN SMITHEE? for AMC, BEAUTY IN A JAR for A&E, and INDIE SEX for IFC.

Lesli was the Line Producer of Participant Media’s A PLACE AT THE TABLE, which premiered at Sundance in 2012 and Insurgent Media’s BEWARE GINGER BAKER, which won the Audience Award for documentary at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival. She was also the consulting producer on the documentary BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED, which debuted at the New York Film Festival in 2017.

One of Lesli’s passions has been training and nurturing up-and-coming documentary filmmakers. From 2009 through 2011, she was one of two Lab Leaders of the prestigious IFP Documentary Film Lab. In 2009, she served as a Consulting Producer for the Sundance Documentary Film Program and produced the IFP Filmmaker Forum during Independent Film Week.

At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, she has helped to nurture the organization’s Critics, Artist, and Industry Academies, which create opportunities for women and people of color to engage with their peers and grow into their careers as critics, filmmakers, and members of the industry.

Lesli is also the co-publisher of Film Comment magazine, the nation’s leading journal of film criticism and culture.